AMRITLAL DAS Vs. GOVT. OF ASSAM AND ORS.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS petition under Article 226, Constitution of India, is directed against an order of the Additional Chief Secretary and Development Commissioner, dated 10 -3 -1949 by which a settlement of 5 bighas 2 kathas and 3 lechas of waste land in dag No. 68 (ka) of Ulubari in the town of Gauhati with the Petitioner Amrit Lal Das, was cancelled under Rule 26 of the Settlement Rules. The order also directed that the land may be settled if possible with needy and landless people.

(2.) THE case of the Petitioner is that the land in question was settled with him by the Deputy Commissioner, Kamrup. The settlement was approved by the Commissioner on 27 -2 -1945. On 2 -3 -1945 the Deputy Commissioner passed his final order. A periodic patta was issued to him on 20 -9 -1946. This patta No. 201 was for 12 years. A sum of Rs. 1,660/ - was realised from him as the premium. On 15 -3 -1949 he was informed by the Deputy Commissioner that the settlement of the land with him had been cancelled by the impugned order dated 10 -3 -1949 and he was directed to take back the premium he had paid. The Petitioner preferred an appeal from this order to this Court. This appeal was dismissed on 8 -2 -1951 by Thadani, C.J. in the exercise of the Revenue jurisdiction of this Court. He found that the order cancelling the settlement was an order of the Government of Assam and no revenue appeal lay to the High Court from the order of the Provincial Government. The validity of the order of the Additional Chief Secretary is now challenged by this petition mainly on two grounds, namely (1) that Rule 26 had no application to the facts of the case and (2) that the Development" Commissioner even when acting as Additional Chief Secretary had no power to cancel the lease under Rule 26.

(3.) THE Petitioner has already exhausted his remedies which were available to him under the Land Revenue Manual. He did not oppose the Withdrawal of the appeal by, Prafulla Chandra Barua in which he may have insisted as a Respondent that the Government had no right to reserve the land for allotment to the landless people after the cancellation of his settlement. He might have urged that if Appellant (Prafulla Chandra Barua) did not press his claim the settlement in his favour should not have been disturbed. He himself treated the order of the Provincial Government as an independent proceeding. His appeal against that order has already failed. He is now seeking relief under Article 226.